Massively

Tell me, The game has been out long enough, plenty of problems should of been fixed up.

On a scale of 1-10, how much are you guys enjoying this game?

Do you see yourselves playing it 2 years, or even 1 year from now?

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Like many, I played the first month and cancelled. Great potential, but some big flaws in the way of making it a "fun" game for me. Even though the drama of failure would be interesting to watch, I'd much rather it succeed and grow! I'm glad people are giving it a try. Hopefully NCSoft re-invests some of the money they make into the game itself.

Seeing how the first patch isn't doing anything to address any of my concerns, I'm probably going to step back and watch this one from a distance. Instead of following their forums and annoucements on a day to day basis, I'll let Massively keep me informed. =) I might resub in 2010, we'll see.

And ultimateQ, I'd give this game a very solid 6/10. It earns that 6 with great fundamentals. Patched correctly, and with well developed expansions, this game 'could' be something people play for years. 1.5.1 however, is not on the right road imho.

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Afraid not, UltimateQ. I played the first month then cancelled, mostly due to huge performance issues in "mass PvP" (somewhat similar to those that drove me away from WAR, I suppose).

Without the epic Realm vs Realm fights, Aion is really just another "kill X rats" MMO. I'll give it a solid 5/10 at this point, though.

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I don't think you can say high continuing sales just a month and a half after a mmo's release automatically equals a strong community. Like most mmo's I'd wait for the company to release numbers 6 months from now before I would drink the coolaid.

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I would give the game an 8 ot of 10.

ONLY because I have found a fantastic Legion to join and we have tons and tons of fun. This game is not one that is fun without good friends. It is too grindy and too group dependent. PUGs can be a real nightmare. Mainly because if you wipe, it is expensive, and that can be really frustrating.

However, as for the game itself, the crafting is great fun, the graphics are incredible, the classes are well balanced and fun to play. The sigma system allows for a little flexibility (but not enough), and the PvP is very fun (an dI am NOT normally a PvP player at all). Going through a rift into enemy territory is VERY VERY VERY fun. Grab a bunch of friends, hop through a rift and not only explore the very different terrain of the opposite side, but also kill everything you see. Good Times!!

Where is it lacking? The questlines are rather trivial, the text can be sometimes pointless although there are hidden amusing gems in some of them, and the first ten levels are super annoying in order to get to a new class. Doing the same 10 levels over and over again for each alt is tiresome. However, by the 4th time you can speed right through them...

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1) Did I renew my subscription after the first (free) month? Yes but am, like EVERY MMO I have played -- or will play --, on the month-to-month renewal plan.

2) Do I expect to continue playing this game for 1-2 years? Maybe, I have only played >1 year with EQ and EQ2 so we shall see. . .

Aion, like its deceased sibling, Tabula Rasa, has great potential but it will take money, time and effort to fulfill the reasonable expectations of its subscribers. NCSoft prematurely (imo) "pulled the plug" on Tabula Rasa so the question is will NCSoft be as impatient with Aion or will it do what SOE did with Vanguard and put it on "life support"? That is the million kinah question and as long as it appears NCSoft is *improving* Aion I plan to stay.

The only "killer bug", that I know of, is the fortress crash that many have experienced but I, taking my time to "smell the roses", do not have characters high enough level to meaningfully participate in RvR anyway so am currently unaffected by it. Other than that, Aion is reasonably free of *coding* bugs; there are some content, balance, usability and design issues but that is another topic. They WILL fix this particular bug eventually but, obviously, the longer it takes the more subscribers they lose.

Whether Aion succeeds in the NA/EU market will depend on how fast they can adapt it to western expectations. Westerners hate grinds, botters, cheaters, spammers and luck>everything when it comes to drops, slotting enchantments and crafting. NCSoft should (=better) know what they need to do to "westernize" Aion and they better do it quicky if they want me to continue renewing my subscription.

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Really enjoying Aion. Give it a good 7/10, brought down only by the botting and gold selling going on.

Not sure if the Korean side is happy to play around the bots and gold sellers but that's not going to be acceptable in the west. Some days it's just about unplayable.

As for the gameplay, it rocks. The story is well crafted, the quests even while a bit grindy and formulaic have some awesome writing that really tells a story. If you're the type of person who reads quests, you should enjoy this game. The cutscenes are a brilliant storytelling mechanic and interface flawlessly with the quest narrative.

Combat is a ball and I can actually fight stuff for hours just playing around with my cool combat moves.

This is really a game you have to sit back and take your time with.

I'll be in here for the long haul if they can sort their bot and gold seller problem out in the next few months. If not, I'll be finding something else to play, which is sad, since this game has huge potential.

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I give it a 6/10, the combat was fun and fast, but eventually that cannot cover up for the fact that under the shiny coat of paint it is still a boring, grindy game. The botting, gold spam and everything else that was allowed its just a statement to how much NCsoft truly cares about customers and subs.

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If I wanted to play a WoW clone, would just play WoW. A game who's ultimate goal is PvP? Nah. Grind, Botters, Spammers, Single Path World? Nah. Heavy Death Penalty and borked grouping? Nah.

Who needs it?

Pass.

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7/10. Maybe 8 on a good day.

Would have been 9 if they had launched without the harsh grind, bots and mob leeching.

1 or 2 years from now? No it's not enough to stop me from playing LOTRO or obsessively watching the GW2 trailer.

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Right now? I'd probably give it a 5/10 or maybe a 6/10 depending on your outlook on the game. There is just too many issues at the higher level that is really difficult to ignore and for a game being focused on PvP they sure didn't incentive playing in the Abyss very much at all. (Not to mention no abyss most post-40 except for fortress guards).

I'd like to hear some of your opinions though on the game to those who have made it to 40-45+ or so. I really have a strong feeling that there might be a switch of opinions about the game as people get up to that level, after all I generally don't even get bored with MMO releases that soon.

So yeah, just saying I think there might be a rift (from what I've read on the forums) of opinion between pre-40 and post-40 players.

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The game was going good, then i encountered a few irritating things, decisions the designers made. I tried shrugging them off, then encountered more irritating things, then more, and more, and even more. then i eventually couldn't stand all the BS and quit.

Some classes are vastly overpowered like the chanter; compared to others which can barely tackle some enemies in 1v1. Quests dont really lead you to more quests of appropriate level, oftentimes you are forced to just plain old grind. Not for a quest, but in a fashion ala classic EQ days where you just go out and kill monsters for EXP.

Flight points arent consistent. I oftentimes found myself trekking back and fourth through zones with annoying stunning monsters many many times, yearning for a simple freakin flight path.

Once i hit lvl 18 i was forced to group. All my quests were done, except the quests that require no less than 6 in a group to kill different color swatches of the same enemies i'd been killing solo since lvl 3.

Loot mechanics are clumsy, there is sort of a "need" button but nothing else, and oftentimes group members roll need just to sell it, even if it is a huge upgrade for your character.

Crafting is too much work for little reward.

Flight, which is the backbone of the marketing campaign for the game, is only able to be done in specified places (5% of the areas you actually play in, can you actually fly in). You can glide whenever u want, but flight isn't allowed everywhere.

The one upside i will say is that one of the biggest things, Aion gets right, is the gameplay. The fighting and battle mechanics, combos, etc. is a lot of fun, which is the backbone of the game. I almost didn't want to quit cause the fighting was so much fun, but the rest of the annoyances started creating too big a blanket over the fun aspects for me to really keep interested. I give it a 5/10

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Wow, such low scores for a new game.

Where you would with (a new game that people really loved) see high scores, 10/10 Aion is showing with even the fanbois nothing more than 7.

That's a pretty good indication.

"Grind is not what the Western audience seeks" is the strong message I see here.

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Thanks everyone for your input. I really do love to see everyone's point of view on the game. Overall it seems like it has a lot of potential. I can't wait to see where it's at 3 months from now. I hope it does well!

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I'm still subscribing though not playing much at all.

Of the guys that tried it out with me - many have left and are in a similar situation with me. This is what people have told me - and I'm not looking forward:

1. Low level is fun 1-10 (new world)
2. 10-15 is fun (whey flying!)
3. 15-20 gets a bit boring until you discover group play - then it's fun again
4. 20-25 is crazy grind, initial exposure to PvP - mostly getting ganked...
5. 26-30 is fun again - group play, you also discover the horror that is enchanting your gear... it cost 100,000k to get to slot 3 slots... and then 2mil to get to the last slot... if you are lucky. You can grow to hate the game.
You blow ALL your gold that you've saved up in a month to enchant your new blue item... and it fails. You look at someone next to you, same level, with ALL blue items ALL enchanted.
You kind of wonder ... did he buy all his gold? Is that how you succeed in this game? There's a lot of farmers in this game... may be because the game is designed for them.

6. 30-40 great pvp/group play ONLY IF you have a group. Farming rare bosses suck. PvE in order to PvP suck. Abyss pointless... Fortress is fun except...
7. 40-50 Fortress PvP - as your client can't handle the extra people - first they start to grey-out - so you are attacking black and white people... next - they disappears altogether so you just see a nametag. So you are now hitting a name tag... and it falls on the ground - ah, the nametag must have died.
Wings? what wings? This is a text game.

8. Fortress crashes your PC. The straw that broke the camel's back.

Sounds like a bait & switch. People are quitting when they hit 30-50 and it's not "just" the grind. It's many factors all included.

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